Proverbs 3:9 Honor GOD with everything you own; give him the first and the best. (10) Your barns will burst, your wine vats will brim over.

Opening Prayer

Introduction

If you would turn in your Bibles to the book of Ezekiel. Ezekile chapter 37. What an awesome weekend we had. It was different but what a powerful word that Bro. Doyle brought to our church. He dealt with two major topics that I think are prevalent for the New Year. 1. Our image of God. 2. Positioning yourself to walk in the purpose and the will of God. Our image of God helps us understand God. This is the reason so many struggle with God because they see him as filling a missing part that their father or mother never gave them. So instead of looking for blessing they look for failure. We must position ourselves to follow God’s plan and we must walk in that. Any venture off the path causes our lives to be in chaos.

Scripture

1. The hand of the LORD came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones.

The Prophet Ezekiel “Peculiar Prophet”

Ezekiel was a peculiar prophet. He was different. God would often ask him to do different things. He would have visions and dreams and what seemed to be “outer body” experiences. God would transport him places mainly to give him a message. Just a few weeks ago we dealt with Ezekiel’s vision of the river. Going deep.

In these visions we see a message for Israel to waken up their spiritual lives. To me in the scriptures Israel is a type of the church. Now we can’t take this to the extreme but we often see the behavior of Israel repeated in the church. God called the church to be his vehicle to share Christ. Yet the church seems to be so caught up in its own purposes and plans that they fail to listen to God.

This time the Lord sits him in a valley that is full of dry bones. We would later learn that this is an illustration of Israel but all Ezekiel could see around him was death, this had been this way for a while.

2. Then He caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and indeed they were very dry.

So he moved around the valley and it was everywhere. There was a vast army of these “dry bones”.

3. And He said to me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" So I answered, "O Lord GOD, You know."

What a powerful question. The Lord asks Ezekiel a question. The obvious answer at the moment seemed to be no. There is no reason for these bones to live. They have run their course. In reality they had been deposited here because they have no purpose.

Yet notice Ezekiel’s answer. He says, “O Lord God, You know.” God – Jehovah – the self existent one. It is hard to talk about the impossibility and what CAN’T happen when you are talking to Jehovah. He is the one that created life.